A Personal Goodbye from Erik & Marjan

There is something we have been meaning to tell you.

Over the past few weeks, many of you will have noticed that things at Molds and Shapes have started to change. And today, we would like to tell you a little more about that change, and more importantly, say a proper goodbye.

After more than six years of building, designing, pouring, packing, experimenting, laughing, occasionally swearing at stubborn silicone, and sending our molds to creative people all over the world, the time has come for us, Erik and Marjan, to step away from Molds and Shapes.

And that feels strange. Very strange, actually. Because Molds and Shapes has never felt like “just a business” to us.

It started with an idea, grew from our own little workshop, and gradually became something much bigger than we could ever have imagined. Over the years we designed hundreds of molds, made thousands upon thousands of silicone casts, packed more parcels than we would ever dare to count, and sent them to you, in countries all over the world.

But the thing we will remember most is not the number of molds we made or orders we shipped. It is what all of you did with them.

Seeing one of our molds transformed into a beautiful resin creation, a piece of jesmonite art, a Christmas decoration, a gift, a piece of home décor or something completely different never got old.

Quite often we would design something in our workshop, wondering what people might make with it, and then, a few weeks later, discover creations on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube that were far more beautiful and imaginative than anything we had pictured ourselves.

That has been one of the greatest pleasures of Molds and Shapes. You gave our designs a life beyond our workshop, and you constantly inspired us to create the next one.

Coming up with new ideas was always one of our favourite parts of the job. A new shape, a new collection, a slightly crazy idea that might or might not work… and then the inevitable question:

“Shall we just try it?”

More often than not, we did. And that is how Molds and Shapes grew into what it is today.

We would have loved to continue doing that for many more years. But somewhere along the way we also had to admit something to ourselves: we are not getting any younger, and running Molds and Shapes had become increasingly demanding.

There were always more orders to make, more molds to pour, more parcels to pack, more ideas waiting to be turned into new products, and simply not enough hours in the day.

Eventually we realised that something had to change.

For quite some time, one of the hardest thoughts for us was that Molds and Shapes might simply have to come to an end. And after everything we had built, the idea that the doors might close for good genuinely hurt.

Not because of the mold collection, the workshop or even the business itself, but because of everything surrounding it: you, our community, our Brand Ambassadors, the creativity we saw every day and the many friendships and connections that had grown along the way.

And then something happened that we could hardly have hoped for.

We found Erwin and Annemarieke. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we found each other.

From our very first conversations, we realised that they looked at Molds and Shapes in much the same way we always had.

• Quality matters
• Customers matter
• Service matters
• Creativity matters
• And if you promise something, you do everything you can to deliver it.

Those values have always been at the heart of Molds and Shapes, and knowing that the people taking over the company shared them was incredibly important to us.

So, in July, we packed up the workshop that had been the home of Molds and Shapes for so many years and moved the entire business to Erwin and Annemarieke’s location.

Hundreds of master molds, equipment, shelving, tools and everything else that had become part of our daily working lives made the journey with us. It was quite a move, both practically and emotionally. But at the same time, it felt like exactly the right step.

Their location gives Molds and Shapes much more space, flexibility and room to grow than we could ever offer from our own workshop. Seeing everything installed there made us realise even more clearly that this was not the end of Molds and Shapes, but the beginning of a new chapter with genuine possibilities for the future.

During June, July and the beginning of August, we worked closely together and taught Erwin and Annemarieke everything we could about the way we designed, produced and ran Molds and Shapes.

There was a lot to learn. A lot. And we had expected that the transition would take considerably longer. But Erwin and Annemarieke surprised us. They picked things up remarkably quickly, asked the right questions, worked incredibly hard and, most importantly, very quickly made Molds and Shapes their own.

They picked things up so quickly that we were able to step away much sooner than we had expected, and since the middle of August, Molds and Shapes has been fully in the hands of Erwin and Annemarieke.

They are now the owners of the company and make all decisions about how Molds and Shapes is run, developed and taken forward. The way the company works, the choices it makes and the direction it takes from here are entirely theirs.

And that is exactly how it should be.

We may still occasionally be asked a question about something from the past, but we are no longer involved in running the company or determining its direction. That chapter is now theirs.

And we are very happy about that. Because it means that Molds and Shapes is not ending. Quite the opposite, it gets to continue, with new energy, new ideas, more room to grow and two people who are every bit as determined as we were to make something special of it. That gives us enormous confidence in the future.

We know there will be changes along the way, there should be. Molds and Shapes should not become a museum dedicated to the way Erik and Marjan once did things.

It should keep evolving. There will be new ideas, new designs and probably things we would never have thought of ourselves. And we honestly cannot wait to see them.

There are, however, a few things we are convinced will not change: the love of good design, the quality of the molds, personal service and the genuine enthusiasm for seeing what all of you create with them.

And that is why stepping away feels so much easier than we once thought it would.

To all our customers

We want to say one enormous THANK YOU! 💖

Thank you for your orders, of course. Without them there would never have been a Molds and Shapes.

But even more importantly, thank you for your trust, your enthusiasm, your messages, your photos, videos and reels, your comments, your patience during our busiest periods and your incredible support over all these years.

Some of you ordered from us once. Many of you came back again and again.

And quite a few names became so familiar to us that we would recognise them immediately when another order appeared.

You may have been customers on paper, but Molds and Shapes never felt like a purely anonymous webshop to us. There are real people on the other side of those orders. And that made all the difference.

To our Brand Ambassadors

You deserve a very special THANK YOU! 💖 Over the years you have been far more than people who demonstrated our molds.

You became the creative face of Molds and Shapes. You showed people what could be made with our designs, inspired thousands of makers, introduced new customers to us and, very importantly, inspired us as well.

Many times, seeing what one of you had created made us look at one of our own molds in a completely different way.

You have been an essential part of the Molds and Shapes story, and we are enormously grateful for everything you have done.

So… is this goodbye?

For us, yes, at least as the people behind Molds and Shapes. Our days of designing molds, pouring silicone, packing orders and trying to squeeze one last parcel into a shipping container are behind us.

But we are certainly not disappearing from the planet, we will continue watching Molds and Shapes from the sidelines, and we are going to enjoy seeing something we built with so much love continue to grow in the hands of Erwin and Annemarieke. We could not have wished for a better outcome.

And now it really is time for us to hand over the keys.

To Erwin and Annemarieke

Take good care of Molds and Shapes, have fun with it, keep experimenting and keep surprising people.

And every now and then, when you have a slightly ridiculous idea and wonder whether you should try it anyway… Just do it.

To everyone who has been part of our journey, thank you, for everything. It has been an unforgettable chapter in our lives, and we are incredibly proud that the story of Molds and Shapes will continue.

With love,
Erik & Marjan
Founders of Molds and Shapes